No, unfortunately, the patent system is not dying. The title refers to deaths caused by the patent system. According to the BBC News science report, Patent system 'stifling science', findings by the Canada-based Innovation Partnership indicate that "Life-saving scientific research is being stifled by a 'broken' patent system". "'Blocking patents' are delaying advances in cancer medicine and food crops," according to the report.

While "[t]he traditional view is that strong patent protection stimulates innovation, reassuring companies that it is safe to invest in research without fear of being stung by rivals," this strategy "deters grass roots research in universities." As an example, "Work on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that can cause breast cancer has been held up by legal disputes over patents held on the genes by Myriad Genetics, a biotech firm based in Utah, US. ... Meanwhile, patients in European countries were denied access to the cancer screening kits, because national health services were unwilling to meet the cost."

Does that therefore make the national health services immoral because they place money ahead of lives?

Ludicrous. The health services money is used to pay the actual costs of health care.

Drug patent licensing fees are used to line the pockets of fatcat pharma CEOs and pay for the next wave of dubious direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

The artificially-jacked-up prices of AIDS drugs, far above the marginal cost of production of the drugs, that puts them financially out of reach of the poor (in America, nevermind in Africa!) is what pays for that big flashy 60-second Superbowl ad for Cialis.

None of your beeswax:

Who are you to establish prices for a producer? Who are you to say what is right and what is wrong with respect to what a producer makes or does not make?

What does a big flashy commercial have to do with anything? What about the big flashy commercials that Ford and GM, both of whom are losing money, pay for? Nothing.

I am curious about the huge licensing fees you mentioned. Why even bother to mention licensing fees, which are a relatively small part of income for some drugs? Many drug companies make their own drugs and distribute them, so licensing fees are a smaller part of their income.

No. This thread is too old. You may not reply to it any more Lonnie.

"Who are you to establish prices for a producer? Who are you to say what is right and what is wrong with respect to what a producer makes or does not make?"

I am not trying to do so. I am saying that the market should be permitted to do so, instead of the producer getting monopoly protection from the government that allows him to artificially inflate his price above what a free market would bear, which would be the marginal cost of reproduction.

"What does a big flashy commercial have to do with anything?"

It is what people are being deprived of lifesaving medications in Africa to finance. Not R&D, not creativity, just some stupid, overpriced, of-questionable-benefit-to-society ad.

"I am curious about the huge licensing fees you mentioned. Why even bother to mention licensing fees, which are a relatively small part of income for some drugs? Many drug companies make their own drugs and distribute them, so licensing fees are a smaller part of their income."

Then they won't really mind losing those fees when the patent system is abolished, especially when their costs go down comparably because they no longer have to pay similar fees to others.

"Who are you to establish prices for a producer? Who are you to say what is right and what is wrong with respect to what a producer makes or does not make?"

I am not trying to do so. I am saying that the market should be permitted to do so, instead of the producer getting monopoly protection from the government that allows him to artificially inflate his price above what a free market would bear, which would be the marginal cost of reproduction.

There are a few medicines where there is no competition, but they are very few. Otherwise, law of supply and demand. For the vast majority of drugs, there is a competitor, many times a generic competitor. If you really want to have a direct affect on prescriptions, get doctors to start noting that generics are acceptable instead of specifying brand-name drugs.

"What does a big flashy commercial have to do with anything?"

It is what people are being deprived of lifesaving medications in Africa to finance. Not R&D, not creativity, just some stupid, overpriced, of-questionable-benefit-to-society ad.

I am not in a position to question what a company does with their money, as long as it is not illegal. Neither would I question what you do with your money, regardless of how foolish I think your expenditures may be.

"I am curious about the huge licensing fees you mentioned. Why even bother to mention licensing fees, which are a relatively small part of income for some drugs? Many drug companies make their own drugs and distribute them, so licensing fees are a smaller part of their income."

Then they won't really mind losing those fees when the patent system is abolished, especially when their costs go down comparably because they no longer have to pay similar fees to others.

Actually, I doubt most pharm companies (the business model of some is to invent and license, so I am unable to say all) would care about loss of license fees as long as they have patents.

No, this thread is too old. You're not allowed to reply to it any more, Lonnie. Only ones still on the front page of the site.

"There are a few medicines where there is no competition, but they are very few."

Explain, then, why a large fraction of lifesaving drugs are priced far, far above marginal cost?

"I am not in a position to question what a company does with their money, as long as it is not illegal."

The problem is that the company is not doing this with "their money"; it is doing this with "our money" and even with human lives.

It is "our money" because the additional money they get because they have patents that they otherwise wouldn't have might as well be a government-imposed sales tax, and it is human lives because that's what it costs when the artificially-inflated prices put a lifesaving drug out of reach of someone that otherwise wouldn't have been.

"Actually, I doubt most pharm companies (the business model of some is to invent and license, so I am unable to say all) would care about loss of license fees as long as they have patents."

That "as long as they have patents" means that they are still doing something nefarious -- either extorting money from other pharma companies (licensing) or extorting money directly from sick people that can ill (no pun intended) afford it (non-licensing, but still wants to have patents).

No, this thread is too old. You're not allowed to reply to it any more, Lonnie. Only ones still on the front page of the site.

I will post on any thread I like. The beauty of liberty, my friend.

"There are a few medicines where there is no competition, but they are very few."

Explain, then, why a large fraction of lifesaving drugs are priced far, far above marginal cost?

Let me see. Penicillin is cheap. Amoxicillin is cheap. Insulin is cheap. I can think of many, inexpensive life-saving drugs. I am unsure of the ratio of "life-saving" to other drugs, but just because there is a new life-saving drug does not mean the old ones are ineffective.

"I am not in a position to question what a company does with their money, as long as it is not illegal."

The problem is that the company is not doing this with "their money"; it is doing this with "our money" and even with human lives.

It is "our money" because the additional money they get because they have patents that they otherwise wouldn't have might as well be a government-imposed sales tax, and it is human lives because that's what it costs when the artificially-inflated prices put a lifesaving drug out of reach of someone that otherwise wouldn't have been.

I disagree with you regarding the money. Any money a corporation has legitimately obtained, meaning someone freely gave them the money in exchange for a good, is theirs.

As for the patent portion, it is quite possible and likely that the drug would not exist at all without patents, and then the quandary regarding money would no longer exist.

"Actually, I doubt most pharm companies (the business model of some is to invent and license, so I am unable to say all) would care about loss of license fees as long as they have patents."

That "as long as they have patents" means that they are still doing something nefarious -- either extorting money from other pharma companies (licensing) or extorting money directly from sick people that can ill (no pun intended) afford it (non-licensing, but still wants to have patents).

Extorting is your wrongly applied word. They provided something to the public, and received something in exchange, all in line with the goals of our founding fathers. You cannot singlehandedly change our laws and call something that is legal, illegal. Thank goodness.

"I will post on any thread I like."

No. Your posts waste my time, because I have to spend a couple of hours every week to debunk the dangerously incorrect nonsense that they invariably contain.

Why are you even bothering to read past the front page anyway?

"Let me see. Penicillin is cheap. Amoxicillin is cheap. Insulin is cheap. I can think of many, inexpensive life-saving drugs."

That's beside the point. The point is that I can think of many, many expensive ones.

""It is "our money" because the additional money they get because they have patents that they otherwise wouldn't have might as well be a government-imposed sales tax, and it is human lives because that's what it costs when the artificially-inflated prices put a lifesaving drug out of reach of someone that otherwise wouldn't have been."

I disagree with you regarding the money."

That's because you're a moron.

"Any money a corporation has legitimately obtained, meaning someone freely gave them the money"

Nobody freely gives them the money. They have no choice. They can't go to another supplier with a lower price, because copyright and patent law are specifically set up to ensure that there ISN'T another supplier with a lower price! Or had you not noticed that?

Essentially, the copyright on Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" means that you cannot buy a non-bootleg disc of that film without paying a "Disney tax" on top of the marginal cost of reproduction, or get it from a truly non-Disney source. The same goes for each other piece of "IP". If a drug is patented by Novartis, you can't legally get it from a non-Novartis source, or avoid paying a "Novartis tax" on it at the drugstore, no matter where you shop.

The freedom of choice has been removed. The consumer can't choose to pay someone else, perhaps someone that can produce the drug more cheaply. They have to pay Novartis, or do without altogether. No matter what pharmacy they buy from, they will have to pay both the local sales tax and the "Novartis tax" on that item.

Or just observe that copyrights and patents inflate the prices that consumers see, and that they exist only by government legislative fiat; that price inflation therefore constitutes a government-effected transfer of wealth away from the consumer, which makes it a defacto tax, whatever you might think about the matter personally. And this "innovation tax", which is provably ineffective at achieving its stated purpose by the way, is about as avoidable as sales tax: you have to either buy nothing or order everything from shady offshore Internet companies.

Some "choice".

"As for the patent portion, it is quite possible and likely that the drug would not exist at all without patents"

Balderdash. If there's a market for something, someone will make it, patents or no patents. Patents just let them squash the competition and shake down customers for a higher price, and then they can turn around and blow the added revenues on advertising.

The research incentives also get distorted. Do you know where big pharma research dollars get focused these days? Heartburn meds, weight loss pills, "yet another pain reliever", and dick stiffeners. Meanwhile we still lack cures for killers like AIDS and cancer.

Some big pharmaceutical company paid tons of money to wastefully duplicate research on ED to develop Cialis. In a patent-free world, they'd have spent a nickel to start producing sildenafil citrate under the name "Cialis", gotten a similar fraction of the dick stiffener market, and spent the balance of those research dollars on something genuinely new.

Pharma patents encourage wasteful duplication of research to produce "me-too" drugs to get around someone else's patents, usually drugs that prove to be less effective or more dangerous than the original.

"Extorting is your wrongly applied word."

No. I do not do anything wrong. Do not lie to people about me again!

"They provided something to the public, and received something in exchange"

It's hardly a fair exchange if they have a fucking monopoly, you twit.

See above about having no non-Novartis source for certain drugs.

It's exactly the same as the bad old days of "having to buy from the company store". Hardly a triumph of free markets and capitalism.

"I will post on any thread I like."

No. Your posts waste my time, because I have to spend a couple of hours every week to debunk the dangerously incorrect nonsense that they invariably contain.

I am still waiting for the debunking part.

"Let me see. Penicillin is cheap. Amoxicillin is cheap. Insulin is cheap. I can think of many, inexpensive life-saving drugs."

That's beside the point. The point is that I can think of many, many expensive ones.

That was the point. You were talking about how expensive life-saving drugs were, and I gave you examples of cheap life-saving drugs, of which there are many, many. Yes, there are many that are expensive as well, paid for by huge investments because "incremental improvements" do not yield AIDS drugs.

That's because you're a moron.

That is the closest you have come to a logical argument yet.

"Any money a corporation has legitimately obtained, meaning someone freely gave them the money"

Nobody freely gives them the money. They have no choice. They can't go to another supplier with a lower price, because copyright and patent law are specifically set up to ensure that there ISN'T another supplier with a lower price! Or had you not noticed that?

Essentially, the copyright on Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" means that you cannot buy a non-bootleg disc of that film without paying a "Disney tax" on top of the marginal cost of reproduction, or get it from a truly non-Disney source. The same goes for each other piece of "IP". If a drug is patented by Novartis, you can't legally get it from a non-Novartis source, or avoid paying a "Novartis tax" on it at the drugstore, no matter where you shop.

The freedom of choice has been removed. The consumer can't choose to pay someone else, perhaps someone that can produce the drug more cheaply. They have to pay Novartis, or do without altogether. No matter what pharmacy they buy from, they will have to pay both the local sales tax and the "Novartis tax" on that item.

Or just observe that copyrights and patents inflate the prices that consumers see, and that they exist only by government legislative fiat; that price inflation therefore constitutes a government-effected transfer of wealth away from the consumer, which makes it a defacto tax, whatever you might think about the matter personally. And this "innovation tax", which is provably ineffective at achieving its stated purpose by the way, is about as avoidable as sales tax: you have to either buy nothing or order everything from shady offshore Internet companies. Some "choice".

You went on at length, and it is difficult to separate this into neat points, so a few points:

o Freedom of choice has not been removed. Has it been reduced? Yes.

o You want to be able to choose a BMW over a Vibe. Sorry, BMW's will always cost more than a Vibe. I am sorry that you do not make enough money to afford a BMW, but you should consider a choice you can afford.

o For consumer goods, there is always a choice. Do you "need" a copy of "Sleeping Beauty," or is that a luxury good that you want but you object to paying Disney the price they wish to charge and seem able to get?

As an aside, I personally find the "Disney tax" annoying. Disney continues to ask far more for their DVD's than anyone else. Yet, they get that amount because people continue to flock to their DVD's. Regardless, I can elect to NOT buy a Disney DVD and buy someone else's DVD; I have freedom of choice where to spend my dollars.

o With the exception of some drugs (perhaps a couple of hundred, per my company), there are choices for the vast majority of drugs. As my company keeps reminding us, most drugs have cheap generic versions. Unless you have to have a non-generic, or a new drug, then ask your doctor to allow substitution of a generic. If you have to take a non-generic, as I do, life sucks. I am not happy about it, but I am happy that someone has created a valuable drug that makes my quality of life better. I hope they create more with the mint they get from me and my company.

"As for the patent portion, it is quite possible and likely that the drug would not exist at all without patents"

Balderdash. If there's a market for something, someone will make it, patents or no patents. Patents just let them squash the competition and shake down customers for a higher price, and then they can turn around and blow the added revenues on advertising.

The research incentives also get distorted. Do you know where big pharma research dollars get focused these days? Heartburn meds, weight loss pills, "yet another pain reliever", and dick stiffeners. Meanwhile we still lack cures for killers like AIDS and cancer.

Some big pharmaceutical company paid tons of money to wastefully duplicate research on ED to develop Cialis. In a patent-free world, they'd have spent a nickel to start producing sildenafil citrate under the name "Cialis", gotten a similar fraction of the dick stiffener market, and spent the balance of those research dollars on something genuinely new.

Pharma patents encourage wasteful duplication of research to produce "me-too" drugs to get around someone else's patents, usually drugs that prove to be less effective or more dangerous than the original.

Or the other way around. Sometimes the original turns out to be dangerous (Remember Lipitor? I was one of those lucky people who had issues with Lipitor. Thank goodness someone else had a "me-too" drug called Zetia that provided similar benefits without the side effects).

As for optional medicines for treating ED, well, I would be hard-pressed to say anything about those medicines. However, the free market has driven a demand for those drugs, and there you have it. I suspect that even when the patent on Viagra runs out that the drugs will continue to command a good price. Also note that the side effects between Levitra, Cialis and Viagra are a little different, and some people can take one but not the others.

As for cancer, pharms continue to spend hundreds of millions on cancer drugs, and they have made some progress. My reading of research indicates that a cure-all is unlikely, so families of cancer drugs will likely be required.

"Extorting is your wrongly applied word."

No. I do not do anything wrong. Do not lie to people about me again!

My opinion. Do not distort my opinion with lies.

"They provided something to the public, and received something in exchange"

It's hardly a fair exchange if they have a fucking monopoly, you twit.

Go whine to your mommy, name-caller.

See above about having no non-Novartis source for certain drugs.

It's exactly the same as the bad old days of "having to buy from the company store". Hardly a triumph of free markets and capitalism.

The differences are significant, as anyone familiar with "company stores" is aware.

"I am still waiting for the debunking part."

That's because you're blind.

No! Wait, you're not supposed to even be posting to this thread anymore. You've already said everything you had to say, as evidenced by the fact that you're now just repeating the same tired old incorrect arguments, liberally mixed with personal attacks aimed at me.

Go away until you're better educated on these issues, about which you yourself have confessed ignorance several times in other comments.

""That's beside the point. The point is that I can think of many, many expensive ones."

That was the point."

Well, there you go, then.

"Yes, there are many that are expensive as well"

Well, there you go then.

Your remaining defense, that there are some cheap ones like penicillin, is a laughable defense. Penicillin won't keep HIV at bay, since HIV is not a bacterium.

Only if every life-threatening condition for which there is an expensive drug also has a not-much-more-than-cost treatment that is at least equally effective can you possibly claim that the patent system doesn't kill people.

In fact, I suggest you find some documents written in praise of patents and copyrights, go a global search and replace of "patents" with "baby killers" and "copyrights" with "free speech muzzling rights", then read the output.

"That is the closest you have come to a logical argument yet."

Your insults are pointless and incorrect. Your correct response to being proven wrong is to make some effort to educate yourself, not to sling mud at your betters.

""The freedom of choice has been removed. The consumer can't choose to pay someone else, perhaps someone that can produce the drug more cheaply. They have to pay Novartis, or do without altogether. No matter what pharmacy they buy from, they will have to pay both the local sales tax and the "Novartis tax" on that item.

Or just observe that copyrights and patents inflate the prices that consumers see, and that they exist only by government legislative fiat; that price inflation therefore constitutes a government-effected transfer of wealth away from the consumer, which makes it a defacto tax, whatever you might think about the matter personally. And this "innovation tax", which is provably ineffective at achieving its stated purpose by the way, is about as avoidable as sales tax: you have to either buy nothing or order everything from shady offshore Internet companies. Some "choice"."

o Freedom of choice has not been removed. Has it been reduced? Yes."

No, it's been removed. You effectively have to buy certain drugs "from the company store". If you get certain diseases it may be "pay GlaxoSmithKline thousands of dollars or die". Phrased that way, it's clearly extortion and racketeering! Picture a bunch of thugs in expensive suits with Italian accents saying "Nice kidneys you have there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to them!"

And this is ignoring that IP lobbyists and their bought congresscritters are increasingly handing defacto legislative power to the entertainment industry and other interests. The DMCA particularly does this: it makes it a felony to circumvent encryption on a copyrighted work, even for purposes that don't involve infringing the distribution or public-performance right. As a result, Disney can legislate that ripping a Disney DVD to your personal computer is a felony; Apple can legislate that using more than five music players to play your iTunes file is a felony; Universal Studios can legislate into existence a felony crime of "aggravated first-degree playing of the European edition of our new movie in America"; and so forth. Yes, that's right, Universal Studios, a private, for-profit, unelected body, can effectively create new felony laws in the US that affect all citizens, and laws that are not subjected to judicial review at that. Laws that have nothing to do with copyright, at that -- the exclusive rights of the author under copyright law have to do with copying for distribution and public performance. Copying your DVD to your PC for private viewing, or privately viewing it in another country, is private performance and does not involve distribution, and so does not fall under the purview of copyright. You can copy a VHS tape for private use or play it in another country without being a copyright infringer. So the prohibitions on doing so with your DVD have nothing to do with copyright.

Giving patent-holders defacto legislative power is probably next on the list of our bought House of So-Called Representatives.

And you, it seems, might be right there cheering them on when they do it.

Shame on you!

"o You want to be able to choose a BMW over a Vibe. Sorry, BMW's will always cost more than a Vibe."

Irrelevant. The problem under discussion is more analogous to if BMW were to use legal bullying to prevent the very existence of the Vibe, or any other non-BMW automobile, so people had to either either buy BMWs at BMW prices or take the fucking bus.

In the case of the first-ever lifesaving drug for some particular condition, it's more as if BMW were to use legal bullying to outlaw not only other cars but the bus, bicycle, riding a horse, walking, and crawling.

Sometimes it simply is not reasonable to tell people to pay a premium or do without entirely.

I argue that ALWAYS it is not reasonable to tell people to pay a premium or do without; I argue that, at least to the extent that someone is willing to manufacture product X or provide service X at or not far above cost, people have the right to obtain (or make!) product or service X at or not far above cost.

"For consumer goods, there is always a choice."

And what about for those lifesaving drugs where there isn't always a choice? Should people really be expected to lay down their lives on the altar of corporate profits?

"Regardless, I can elect to NOT buy a Disney DVD and buy someone else's DVD"

The difficulty is in finding "someone else's DVD" with particular content on it.

There's no competition to supply the cheapest, most efficiently produced and distributed "Sleeping Beauty" discs.

Engineered market failure.

Evil.

"o With the exception of some drugs (perhaps a couple of hundred, per my company), there are choices for the vast majority of drugs."

Are those couple of hundred not enough? How many people need to be threatened with death -- actual, final death -- before it IS enough to say "no more!" to the evils of IP? Right now, there are easily over ten million people in danger of dying because of IP. How many does it take before IP is too evil to be allowed to live? Fifty million? A hundred? Perhaps it makes a difference that most of the ten million are poor, black, and in Africa. Maybe it only matters if it starts to kill Americans. Well, it does kill Americans. How many have deadly illnesses and no medical insurance? Certainly at least a hundred thousand. I wonder how many millions of Africans are worth a hundred thousand Americans to you and other patent lovers?

To me, one person is worth one person, no matter who or where they are, except maybe if they're you or someone like you.

And one single person dead due to the unnecessary and innovation-stifling protectionist laws known as "intellectual property laws" is one too fucking many.

Except maybe if it turned out to be you.

Then it might be called "irony" instead.

"As my company keeps reminding us, most drugs have cheap generic versions."

And as I seem to have to keep reminding you, "most" is "not enough".

"I hope they create more with the mint they get from me and my company."

They won't. They'll spend it on developing their own dick stiffener to compete with Pfizer and on direct-to-consumer Superbowl ads for heartburn and arthritis meds, while people continue to die of AIDS and cancer all over the world.

""Pharma patents encourage wasteful duplication of research to produce "me-too" drugs to get around someone else's patents, usually drugs that prove to be less effective or more dangerous than the original."

Or the other way around."

Rarely.

"Sometimes the original turns out to be dangerous"

And on those occasions, companies would still develop the improved drug without the patent system. In fact, without the incentive to generate UNnecessary "me-too" drugs the genuinely improved "me-too" drugs would get a bigger share of the research dollars.

"However, the free market has driven a demand for those drugs"

Which can be fed by manufacturing a single known safe-and-effective drug. No more research dollars needed. Anything that diverts research money to developing similar drugs at this time is probably killing people by doing so, pure and simple.

""No. I do not do anything wrong. Do not lie to people about me again!"

My opinion."

Your opinions about me are irrelevant, off-topic, and unwelcome here. Keep them to yourself!

"Do not distort my opinion with lies."

Do not call me a liar again. You're the liar here. And, now, a hypocrite.

"Go whine to your mommy, name-caller."

No. You will stop insulting me in public or else.

"The differences are significant, as anyone familiar with "company stores" is aware."

No, they are not. Once again there may be no alternative. We even have a latter-day LITERAL "company store", the Apple "app store", which exists because of protectionist IP laws. Without those anyone could modify iPods and iPhones and make interoperable products without Apple getting to play gatekeeper. Apple copyrights and Apple patents are used to force users of those devices to buy from the company store.

Patents force patients of certain diseases to buy from the Novartis company store.

Patents force patients of certain other diseases to buy from the GlaxoSmithKline company store.

The list goes on.

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Only if every life-threatening condition for which there is an expensive drug also has a not-much-more-than-cost treatment that is at least equally effective can you possibly claim that the patent system doesn't kill people.

The patent system does NOT kill people. Many things kill people, but patents are not one of them.

Logically:

Given: The need for a drug exists.

Given: A pharmaceutical company has the financial resources to spend the $800 million it takes to develop a drug for the need. These financial resources exist because the pharmaceutical company has patented products. Take away the products, take away the financial resources and the ability to develop a drug for the need.

Therefore, patents enable to company to develop an expensive drug that they would not otherwise be able to develop.

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Next, you will be claiming that intellectual property kills kittens.

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The freedom of choice has been removed. The consumer can't choose to pay someone else, perhaps someone that can produce the drug more cheaply. They have to pay Novartis, or do without altogether. No matter what pharmacy they buy from, they will have to pay both the local sales tax and the "Novartis tax" on that item.

If Novartis did not have the financial resources provided to them by their patents, then Novartis would have been unable to develop the drug in question, and then there would be no "Novartis tax," because there would be no drug.

Or just observe that copyrights and patents inflate the prices that consumers see, and that they exist only by government legislative fiat; that price inflation therefore constitutes a government-effected transfer of wealth away from the consumer, which makes it a defacto tax, whatever you might think about the matter personally. And this "innovation tax", which is provably ineffective at achieving its stated purpose by the way, is about as avoidable as sales tax: you have to either buy nothing or order everything from shady offshore Internet companies. Some "choice"."

However, the fact that more than 200 different vehicle models are offered for sale today in an array of prices, from less than $15,000 to more than $1,000,000, seems to indicate that prices must be inflated a negligible amount.

IP does not necessarily transfer wealth to or from anyone. In fact, in highly competitive industries, there is a continual drive to be inventive and cheaper, because the market responds to cheap and inventive. So, we see hydrostatic lawn tractors with heavily patented products continually reduced in price. A decade and a half ago a mower with a hydrostatic drive cost thousands of dollars. Now, you can have one for as low as $1,200 or $1,300, in spite of the fact that all the hydrostatic drive manufacturers have hundreds of patents. Where is your "innovation tax"?

Further, if "no-IP" is such a great thing, any company can choose to follow a route that does not include IP.

No, it's been removed. You effectively have to buy certain drugs "from the company store". If you get certain diseases it may be "pay GlaxoSmithKline thousands of dollars or die". Phrased that way, it's clearly extortion and racketeering!

Then you should complain to the federal government, because extortion and racketeering are illegal.

Picture a bunch of thugs in expensive suits with Italian accents saying "Nice kidneys you have there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to them!"

On the other hand, the very money you paid to GSK also enables them to create more cool drugs. If someone could create those same cool drugs without spending millions or hundreds of millions, they would. So, is it better to have an expensive drug, or no drug at all?

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In the case of the first-ever lifesaving drug for some particular condition, it's more as if BMW were to use legal bullying to outlaw not only other cars but the bus, bicycle, riding a horse, walking, and crawling.

You keep forgetting that it was only the financial resources that companies like GSK obtained from previous medications that enabled the development of the new, expensive medication. If you do not want new, expensive medications, take away companies' ability to develop them. Problem solved.

I argue that ALWAYS it is not reasonable to tell people to pay a premium or do without; I argue that, at least to the extent that someone is willing to manufacture product X or provide service X at or not far above cost, people have the right to obtain (or make!) product or service X at or not far above cost.

No such right exists. In fact, numerous studies have shown that the only reason we have the pharmaceuticals we do is because of IP. To keep the benefit, keep IP. To eliminate new drugs, eliminate IP. That easy. Then guess who will pay for new drugs? Our government. Will they select drugs demanded by the market, or by lobbyists? Even if they select the right conditions to research, will they select the best new drug? Will they fund competing drugs? I prefer the market make the choices rather than the government.

And what about for those lifesaving drugs where there isn't always a choice? Should people really be expected to lay down their lives on the altar of corporate profits?

I expect companies to continue to develop new life-saving drugs, based on their financial resources. I hope for them to be developed faster, so the patents will expire sooner. In the meantime, I am glad we have the ones we do, enable by IP protection.

There's no competition to supply the cheapest, most efficiently produced and distributed "Sleeping Beauty" discs.

Engineered market failure.

I have seen how Disney is on the verge of bankruptcy because of their market failure.

Evil.

Are those couple of hundred not enough? How many people need to be threatened with death -- actual, final death -- before it IS enough to say "no more!" to the evils of IP?

If the IP did not exist, neither would the drugs. How many people would need to be threatened with death -- actual, final death -- before it IS enough to say "we need IP now", so that new drugs would be developed? How many people would die, and would have to die, because the resources did not exist to develop new, life-saving drugs?

"As my company keeps reminding us, most drugs have cheap generic versions."

And as I seem to have to keep reminding you, "most" is "not enough".

At least the drugs exist. No IP, then many, many fewer life-saving drugs, and we would be having an entirely different conversation. How many people would have to die before we realized that IP is needed to develop the financial resources to develop expensive drugs?

"I hope they create more with the mint they get from me and my company."

They won't. They'll spend it on developing their own dick stiffener to compete with Pfizer and on direct-to-consumer Superbowl ads for heartburn and arthritis meds, while people continue to die of AIDS and cancer all over the world.

I am on one of those "heartburn" drugs, and though expensive, my quality of life is substantially better because of it. Millions, BILLIONS, are being spent on AIDS and cancer research, and though there are treatments, there are no cures. However, this argument does not help your case. The government and private agencies are spending mints on cures for these conditions, far more than the drug companies have available to them. If there are no cures yet, you should not point fingers at the drug companies.

"Sometimes the original turns out to be dangerous"

And on those occasions, companies would still develop the improved drug without the patent system. In fact, without the incentive to generate UNnecessary "me-too" drugs the genuinely improved "me-too" drugs would get a bigger share of the research dollars.

How soon? After the original was proven to be dangerous? It is more likely that everyone would have copied the potentially dangerous original, and a follow-on drug would have languished because everyone thought that it was fine, until proven it wasn't.

"However, the free market has driven a demand for those drugs"

Which can be fed by manufacturing a single known safe-and-effective drug. No more research dollars needed. Anything that diverts research money to developing similar drugs at this time is probably killing people by doing so, pure and simple.

Except, we frequently find that there are few "safe-and-effective" drugs. Nearly all drugs have limitations. I like having alternatives because some people are unable to take some drugs, but can take others. We need the research for alternative drugs because the first, second, third and fourth and probably not the most "safe-and-effective."

[Insult Deleted]

[Insult Deleted]

[Insult Deleted]

"[Insult Deleted]"

No. You are the one being insulting and hostile here. To the extent that I'm doing anything similar at all, I am only doing it back.

Do not make false accusations about me in public again!

""Only if every life-threatening condition for which there is an expensive drug also has a not-much-more-than-cost treatment that is at least equally effective can you possibly claim that the patent system doesn't kill people."

The patent system does NOT kill people."

So you are claiming, with a straight face, that "every life-threatening condition for which there is an expensive drug also has a not-much-more-than-cost treatment that is at least equally effective"?

Please furnish evidence to support your claim or else retract it.

"Next, you will be claiming that intellectual property kills kittens."

To the extent that it prices lifesaving veterinary drugs out of reach of some uninsured cat-owners, I suspect that it does.

""The freedom of choice has been removed. The consumer can't choose to pay someone else, perhaps someone that can produce the drug more cheaply. They have to pay Novartis, or do without altogether. No matter what pharmacy they buy from, they will have to pay both the local sales tax and the "Novartis tax" on that item."

If Novartis did not have the financial resources provided to them by their patents, then Novartis would have been unable to develop the drug in question"

Nonsense. There must be better ways to finance drug development, and ways to make drug development cheaper. Unfortunately, pharma companies being able to set prices arbitrarily, insulated from market forces by protectionist policies, results in their having no incentive to develop such alternatives methodologies.

""Or just observe that copyrights and patents inflate the prices that consumers see, and that they exist only by government legislative fiat; that price inflation therefore constitutes a government-effected transfer of wealth away from the consumer, which makes it a defacto tax, whatever you might think about the matter personally. And this "innovation tax", which is provably ineffective at achieving its stated purpose by the way, is about as avoidable as sales tax: you have to either buy nothing or order everything from shady offshore Internet companies. Some "choice"."

However,"

However, nothing. Just observe that copyrights and patents inflate the prices that consumers see, and that they exist only by government legislative fiat; that price inflation therefore constitutes a government-effected transfer of wealth away from the consumer, which makes it a defacto tax, whatever you might think about the matter personally. And this "innovation tax", which is provably ineffective at achieving its stated purpose by the way, is about as avoidable as sales tax: you have to either buy nothing or order everything from shady offshore Internet companies. Some "choice".

"the fact that more than 200 different vehicle models are offered for sale today in an array of prices, from less than $15,000 to more than $1,000,000, seems to indicate that prices must be inflated a negligible amount."

Bollocks. For all you know, the low end of the range would be below $5000 without patents. Regardless, designing a car around patents is not so difficult these days because all of the patents on the fundamentals, such as common transmission mechanisms, engine elements, and so forth, have expired. Patents swirl more around esoteric and specific fuel-injection designs and are mostly circumventable without distorting or weakening the design so much.

Nevertheless, they exact their toll, and even if the patents in the space had become completely harmless, that would mean that they had become completely pointless, too. The patent that isn't obstructing a competitor is the patent you may as well not have.

Of course, if the thrust of your argument here is that the patents in the space are "mostly harmless", then you are damning patents with faint praise.

"IP does not necessarily transfer wealth to or from anyone."

Nonsense. As soon as someone gets a copyright or a patent, my legal ability to arrange my own personally-owned widgets or bits in any manner I please has just been slightly and incrementally diminished. That is a wealth transfer away from me. When I then pay double the marginal cost of reproduction for something that ought to be cheap, more wealth has been transferred away from me. And it all lines the pockets of so-called "rights holders".

Those "rights holders" are the real pirates out there.

And these are pirates that kill. Besides pharma patent victims (of which I could conceivably become one, myself -- and how much of a wealth transfer has occurred if my life is sacrificed on the altar of corporate profiteering? Hmm?) I have no doubt that these companies, through their lobbyists, might foment a war at some point in a last-ditch effort to halt the collapse of the "IP" system. We already have the Pirate Bay and Antigua out there, and before long we might see other, and larger, areas of more or less free copying in the world. The big "rights holders" will complain, agitate, and eventually effect trade sanctions against these places. Some will become prosperous anyway, and even become hotbeds of innovation. And then the evidence will start to become obvious to the lay person that patents and copyrights serve the opposite of their stated purpose.

At that point, nuisance has become mortal threat, and you can bet the US of A will go to war with the most prominent example of such a "Napster Nation".

And then people will die at a rate of hundreds or thousands or more a day, rather than the handful a day caused by pharma patents presently.

Perhaps more than thousands; we have not seen "real" warfare between two advanced industrialized nations for over sixty years. Fully-industrialized warfare can kill millions in a single year, and that's assuming nukes and other WMDs are not used. If Hollywood nukes Seoul, South Korea (or wherever) in 2020, how many will die then?

And that war will determine our very futures. If the forces of freedom win, it's the end of the gravy train for a lot of very large and powerful interests. If, on the other hand, those special interests win, it's the end of human freedom and the return to serfdom, perhaps forever. Because they'll patent human genes (already have some), patent neural patterns and architectures, and eventually own us all lock, stock, and barrel. And they'll use that to erect tollbooths as soon as means of enforcing payment become practical. Someday you won't be able to eat, breathe, or take a shit without your bank account being automatically deducted some ludicrous amount to pay various pharma companies. With the continued erosion of personal bankruptcy law, you'll become indentured to some big corporation before very long. Everyone but the CEO class will. And then it's back to aristocrats and peasants.

""In fact, in highly competitive industries, there is a continual drive to be inventive and cheaper, because the market responds to cheap and inventive. So, we see hydrostatic lawn tractors with heavily patented products continually reduced in price. A decade and a half ago a mower with a hydrostatic drive cost thousands of dollars. Now, you can have one for as low as $1,200 or $1,300, in spite of the fact that all the hydrostatic drive manufacturers have hundreds of patents. Where is your "innovation tax"?"

In the past, and on other products.

You said it yourself: "A decade and a half ago a mower with a hydrostatic drive cost thousands of dollars. Now, you can have one for as low as $1,200."

There's your tax -- thousands of dollars, less twelve hundred.

And again, that the patent has become harmless (and ineffective, aside from in the role of deterrence arsenal, presumably because it got circumvented) is damning patents with faint praise.

"Further, if "no-IP" is such a great thing, any company can choose to follow a route that does not include IP."

Nonsense -- they're wide open to patent lawsuits from less innovative firms if they don't have patents of their own to provide the threat of "mutual assured destruction". As it is, they'll be parasitized by trolls like NTP no matter how big a portfolio of deterrence they amass. So there's really no avoiding "IP" and its associated costs and barriers to entry for companies in most spaces these days, save food and fashion design. And the currently-successful incumbents in those areas are pushing to have "IP" applied to those goods-categories too!

""No, it's been removed. You effectively have to buy certain drugs "from the company store". If you get certain diseases it may be "pay GlaxoSmithKline thousands of dollars or die". Phrased that way, it's clearly extortion and racketeering!"

Then you should complain to the federal government, because extortion and racketeering are illegal."

This, and other comments like it, IS my complaint. This whole SITE is such a complaint.

"On the other hand, the very money you paid to GSK also enables them to create more cool drugs."

Nice theory, but wrong in practise. It mainly enables them to buy that big expensive Superbowl ad for their hot new heartburn remedy, while thousands of people continue to die worldwide every month of AIDS, TB, malaria, and even the fucking flu.

"If someone could create those same cool drugs without spending millions or hundreds of millions, they would. So, is it better to have an expensive drug, or no drug at all?"

You phrase it as an exhaustive dichotomy, but there must be other options. An explicit drug-development tax, levied against only those that can afford to pay, for example. How about a sales tax on lifestyle drugs of the rich and famous, used to fund the development only of lifesaving drugs for the poor and everyman? That would be a progressive solution. Artificial price inflation that makes the poor have to live with (or die from) medical treatment that's 20 years out of date is a regressive solution.

"[Deleted. Off subject.]"

No. The only one going off topic here is you, whenever you stop talking about "IP" and start telling everyone what an awful person you think I am instead. I am not on-topic here. Stop discussing me and confine your remarks to other subjects.

[more lies about me deleted]

""In the case of the first-ever lifesaving drug for some particular condition, it's more as if BMW were to use legal bullying to outlaw not only other cars but the bus, bicycle, riding a horse, walking, and crawling."

You keep forgetting"

No, idiot, I do not. Stop insulting me, you prick.

(As promised, two insults in response to your vicious rudeness this time. Next time it's four. Then eight, then sixteen...)

"it was only the financial resources that companies like GSK obtained from previous medications that enabled the development of the new, expensive medication."

No, you keep forgetting that it is theoretically possible for the drug-discovery-funding problem to be solved in some other manner!

""I argue that ALWAYS it is not reasonable to tell people to pay a premium or do without; I argue that, at least to the extent that someone is willing to manufacture product X or provide service X at or not far above cost, people have the right to obtain (or make!) product or service X at or not far above cost."

No such right exists."

Bullshit. It is not currently enshrined in constitutional law or respected much of anywhere, but it damned well does exist, as an extension of the natural right of the people to arrange their own privately-owned bits and widgets however they choose. As an extension, in other words, of plain old property rights in physical stuff.

In simpler language, hands off my computer, Hollywood and Microsoft; hands off my tools and parts, Apple; hands off my body, Genentech; hands off my plate of food and my potted plants and my lawn and my garden, Monsanto; and hands off my water molecules, sulfur atoms, calcium ions, and so forth, Pfizer!

They're not for sale, and for those I'm willing to rent, my fees start at $600 an hour for rental by large corporations, and escalate from there.

"In fact, numerous studies have shown that the only reason we have the pharmaceuticals we do is because of IP."

Bullshit.

"To keep the benefit, keep IP. To eliminate new drugs, eliminate IP."

How about replacing "IP" with a more progressive form of taxation?

"That easy. Then guess who will pay for new drugs? Our government. Will they select drugs demanded by the market, or by lobbyists?"

Perhaps selecting drugs shouldn't be left up to the market. The disproportionate buying power of small segments of the market, and nearly-nonexistent buying power of large segments, means that the market selects heartburn relievers, dick stiffeners, arthritis pain-reducers, and in the lifesaving department, clot-busters and blood pressure meds. The primary worldwide burden of disease, morbidity, and mortality is not from any of the things helped by these drugs. The primary health burden ON THE RICH is what's helped by these drugs, but that's not optimal for society or human rights worldwide, now, is it?

This is one case where the market does a poor job of allocating resources, sacrificing thousands of poor people in Africa -- sacrificing their very lives -- to assure rich Americans with bad dietary habits less heartburn, virility later in life, and a "get out of heart attack free" card.

Perhaps without pharma patents the fat cats'd tighten their belts and eat less AND more money would be freed up to research the less preventable and deadlier diseases that currently have the poor at their mercy.

"Even if they select the right conditions to research, will they select the best new drug? Will they fund competing drugs? I prefer the market make the choices rather than the government."

I don't. Not when lives are at stake. Though government doesn't always do a stellar job either. Some other entity, perhaps the WHO, might be a better choice.

""And what about for those lifesaving drugs where there isn't always a choice? Should people really be expected to lay down their lives on the altar of corporate profits?"

I expect companies to continue to develop new life-saving drugs, based on their financial resources."

That's not an answer to the above.

I'll take your dodging of the question as your conceding victory.

I win.

Let's both go home and get on with our lives, eh?

"I am glad we have the ones we do, enable by IP protection."

You don't have any way of knowing what mechanisms might have been used instead, without "IP". Probably they'd have come up with more efficient discovery and testing procedures AND some more progressive and enlightened system for supplying R&D money than "tax the sick, weak, and poor beyond their ability to pay, while the rich get richer and buy Superbowl ads".

""There's no competition to supply the cheapest, most efficiently produced and distributed "Sleeping Beauty" discs.

Engineered market failure."

I have seen how Disney is on the verge of bankruptcy because of their market failure."

Disney is doing quite well, off the backs of consumers that are forced to pay them through the nose for what really should be cheap commodity products, or else do without.

Anytime a single company is getting really rich off something really cheap, you have to suspect market failure. A competitive market would have many companies in the space of supplying that product and they'd have thin margins.

""Are those couple of hundred not enough? How many people need to be threatened with death -- actual, final death -- before it IS enough to say "no more!" to the evils of IP?"

If the IP did not exist, neither would the drugs."

Bullshit. See above.

"How many people would need to be threatened with death -- actual, final death -- before it IS enough to say "we need IP now""

Wrong question. We might have needed *some* mechanism for funding drug research, but "IP" is an exceptionally poor fit, since it encourages developing drugs for the rich instead of drugs for everyone and it makes drugs unavailable to most of the people that need drugs most.

To believe that "IP" was the only possible way it could have been done is a massive failure of imagination -- or the presence of a strong bias.

I think the real reason you're advocating killing poor Africans is simply to perpetuate your own job, you callous little cad.

And you're fighting so hard to block your ears (and, unfortunately, everyone else's) to the truth because telling yourself "the drugs wouldn't even exist without IP, the drugs wouldn't even exist without IP" while sticking your fingers in your ears to any contrary evidence is the only way you can sleep at night.

Rationalizer. Self-deceiver. You're more contemptible than even amoral serial killers like Bundy. The truly amoral are broken or sick in some way -- you are a normal human being, perpetuating an inhuman system through willful blindness rather than admit culpability and switch to the right side and help start the healing process. You make me sick!

"the resources did not exist to develop new, life-saving drugs?"

The resources exist. But the best way to get them is NOT to take them by force from those least able to pay -- the poor.

""And as I seem to have to keep reminding you, "most" is "not enough"."

At least"

As I seem to have to keep reminding you, "most" is "not enough".

"No IP, then many, many fewer life-saving drugs"

False.

"How many people would have to die before we realized that IP is needed"

IP is NOT needed. See above. See plenty of other posts. Stop lying. By repeating this after being told several times that it isn't true, and exactly why it isn't true, you are demonstrating a clear intent to deceive. I call that lying. That you're also lying to yourself about the same thing does not absolve you of responsibility, either.

""They won't. They'll spend it on developing their own dick stiffener to compete with Pfizer and on direct-to-consumer Superbowl ads for heartburn and arthritis meds, while people continue to die of AIDS and cancer all over the world."

I am on one of those "heartburn" drugs, and though expensive, my quality of life is substantially better because of it."

Yeah, you get to keep enjoying spicy foods and other unhealthy lifestyle elements well into your forties and fifties, while thousands die of treatable disease in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere.

Aren't you the role model, the poster child for patents!

I think I've said almost enough. You don't need much more debunking, when you do such a good job of putting your foot in it all on your own like this.

"Millions, BILLIONS, are being spent on AIDS and cancer research"

Because the rich sometimes get AIDS, and fairly often get cancer. How much is being spent on malaria? TB? In their short-sighted zeal they aren't even spending enough on bird flu research, even though bird flu might kill tens of thousands of the solid-gold-golf-clubs set, and tens of millions of actual human beings, starting quite soon and quite suddenly, given a bad enough roll of the dice. Right now it's "poor people in Asia" that die of it, so who gives a shit? TB might also get them. A sufficiently antibiotic-resistant TB that evolves will strike down millions, without sparing the rich, just like a new worst-case flu pandemic would.

"and though there are treatments, there are no cures"

Of course. Why sell someone the cure, when you can sell them the treatment instead? And then sell them the treatment, and then sell them the treatment, and then ...

You get the picture.

The patent-rents system encourages big pharma to steer its research in the direction of "ways to manage X chronically" in preference to "ways to cure X". Why also do they put out lots of clot-busters, blood pressure meds, and the like and not do much about developing a stay-thin pill, appetite reducer, etc.? Because they can make less money selling each rich person a cure for bad eating habits than they can selling them a lifetime supply of hypertension meds, ED pills (ED being mainly a consequence of high blood pressure), and so forth -- and when they eventually have a heart attack or a stroke anyway, clot-busters, statins, blood thinners, and if they're really lucky, another round of two of clot-busters before they switch to selling Prozac and other brand name antidepressants to his grieving widow and children!

Don't think that just because you're on the "haves" rather than "have nots" side of the divide that you're not being taken advantage of too. It's just subtler, as befits your "station in life".

Much the way the police react to suspects of the same general crime differently: * Rich white guy: politely tell him he has to come with them, leave by the back door, then discreetly cuff him out of public view. * Middle-class white guy: arrest and cuff him in front of wife and kids * Poor white guy: arrest and cuff him in public on a busy street * Black dude: slam him into a wall, throw him to the ground, wrestle with him a bit, make sure the nightstick gets its daily quota of exercise lest it get flabby, cuff him, say "You're under arrest asshole!", and drag him away. * Left-leaning student that's anti-patent and anti-war: Taser him, then see "Black dude" above.

The system is corrupt and inefficient. Down with the system!

"The government and private agencies are spending mints on cures for these conditions, far more than the drug companies have available to them."

I'd be interested to know exactly where the research dollars really go, and why they're being misallocated. (As for who's pulling the strings to get them misallocated, I think that is pretty obvious, if not which precise strings are being pulled and where.)

""And on those occasions, companies would still develop the improved drug without the patent system. In fact, without the incentive to generate UNnecessary "me-too" drugs the genuinely improved "me-too" drugs would get a bigger share of the research dollars."

How soon?"

Sooner than when the companies have an incentive to put out new products until they have one single blockbuster and then sit back and rake it in for twenty-odd years, that's for sure. Sooner than when research is impeded by patents and other obstacles raised supposedly, and ironically, in the name of progress. (Biomed research is especially rocky, difficult, and expensive due to, you guessed it, patents. This is a well-documented fact. How much of that drug-development expense that creates the supposed necessity for patents is caused by patents? More than zero. To what extent are patents self-perpetuating by this sort of mechanism? High barriers to entry that are claimed to justify the patent system, to reward successful entrants into the market, are at least partially caused by "IP". Perhaps removing them would remove much of their "necessity", to whatever extent that "necessity" even existed in the first place.)

"After the original was proven to be dangerous? It is more likely that everyone would have copied the potentially dangerous original, and a follow-on drug would have languished because everyone thought that it was fine, until proven it wasn't."

BS. The original would be yanked by the FDA, and there'd be a huge incentive to be the first to develop a viable replacement -- a guaranteed windfall from pure free-market forces.

Assuming the original was as dangerous to begin with. I advocate moving primary responsibility for later safety trials, at minimum, from the drug company (which has a vested interest in the outcome) to the government (which has a mandate to serve and protect). Fewer Vioxxes would slip through the cracks, because all of the book-cooking done by Big Pharma would go away. What still occurred (cooking the books on Phase I trials to get the government to pick up the later trials) would be severely punished. Kill hundreds with Vioxx? Drug gets yanked, you get a fine and a slap on the wrist. Cost the government millions doing later-stage trials on a drug that you fraudulently sold them as meeting their minimum requirements when it didn't? You bet government lawyers and tax collectors will be after your ass big-time! You'll be repossessed, bankrupted, put into receivership, and everyone directly involved in the fraud and every executive who signed off on it will get prison time.

""Which can be fed by manufacturing a single known safe-and-effective drug. No more research dollars needed. Anything that diverts research money to developing similar drugs at this time is probably killing people by doing so, pure and simple."

Except"

Except nothing. Anything that diverts research money to developing similar drugs at this time is probably killing people by doing so, pure and simple.

"We need the research for alternative drugs"

Truly "alternative" drugs, with novel mechanisms of action and all, will have market demand. It's just the "me too" drugs that stick a maybe-slightly-toxic side chain on a patented molecule to make a non-patented one (which is then itself patented by the "me too" company, of course) that would wither on the vine, as they should.

(If you're lucky, the side chain merely impedes absorption or otherwise reduces effectiveness.)

"[Insult Deleted]

[Insult Deleted]

[Insult Deleted]"

No. Do not criticize me publicly ever again. The only one deserving of personal criticisms here is you.

You said it yourself: "A decade and a half ago a mower with a hydrostatic drive cost thousands of dollars. Now, you can have one for as low as $1,200."

There's your tax -- thousands of dollars, less twelve hundred.

I think I completely missed your point here. Hydrostatic drives were not patented when they were expensive. The technology had stagnated and seemed caught up in some sort of weird expensive stasis. Then in 1988 and 1989 Saur-Sundstrand and Kanzaki Kokyukoki developed integrated hydrostatic units that they patented in the late 1980's and early 1990's, stimulating Tecumseh to also get into the race to develop new technology.

Sauer-Sundstrand, now Sauer-Danfoss, created a joint venture called Hydro-Gear to exploit this new technology. Hydro-Gear and Kanzaki Kokyukoki, through their Tuff Torq division, have been in a continuous innovation race, reducing costs and prices steadily over nearly two decades. A hydrostatic transmission for a lawn tractor today costs about 40% of what it did two decades ago, all driven by a constant invention race between three companies.

So, if the benchmark hydrostatic transmission price was X dollars, and the current price is .4X dollars, and a total of 10 million drives have been sold by Tuff Torq and Hydro-Gear in that period of time, and the average price over that period of time is half the eventual savings, then consumers saved about 3,000,000X. Now, pick a number. If the original price of a hydrostatic transmission was $300, then the "monopoly rent" or "patent tax" would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a negative $900 million. So, as a result of the patent wars between Hydro-Gear and Tuff Torq, consumers ended up saving at least $900 million. Amazing amount of patent rent, all to the benefit of consumers.

"I think I completely missed your point here."

That much is certain.

"The technology had stagnated and seemed caught up in some sort of weird expensive stasis."

Probably because of a patent. Perhaps not on the drive itself, but on some part or process under the hood.

"So, as a result of the patent wars between Hydro-Gear and Tuff Torq, consumers ended up saving at least $900 million."

Patents didn't cause that. Competition did; competition that happened in spite of, not because of, patents.

"I think I completely missed your point here."

That much is certain.

On the other hand, that also presumes you had a point.

"The technology had stagnated and seemed caught up in some sort of weird expensive stasis."

Probably because of a patent. Perhaps not on the drive itself, but on some part or process under the hood.

There were dozens of manufacturers of lawn tractors with mechanical drives. The mechanical drives were quite cheap, as low as $600. There was no barrier to entry in manufacturing lawn tractors with mechanical drives.

Similarly, there was no barrier to manufacturing hydrostatic drives. Eaton had the best products, but they were expensive. Other companies also had hydrostatic products. If there were any patents, they expired a long time ago. The problem was the paradigm of the hydraulic industry. Hydro-Gear and Kanzaki changed that paradigm.

"So, as a result of the patent wars between Hydro-Gear and Tuff Torq, consumers ended up saving at least $900 million."

Patents didn't cause that. Competition did; competition that happened in spite of, not because of, patents.

You are hilarious. Did you work for one of those two companies? Did you see what their strategy sessions involve? Each company monitored the other's patents. Each company watched the direction the other was taken. Each company responded to the direction of the other's patents by developing their own countermoves and technology. Patents were an integral part of the competition. I believe it is absolutely accurate to say that neither company would have developed the products they did and the price reductions they did without patents.

"On the other hand, that also presumes you had a point."

I did. Stop publicly lying about me.

""Probably because of a patent. Perhaps not on the drive itself, but on some part or process under the hood."

There were dozens of manufacturers of lawn tractors with mechanical drives. The mechanical drives were quite cheap, as low as $600. There was no barrier to entry in manufacturing lawn tractors with mechanical drives."

Irrelevant. We were discussing hydrostatic drives.

"Similarly, there was no barrier to manufacturing hydrostatic drives."

Obviously there was.

"Hydro-Gear and Kanzaki changed that paradigm."

Not because of patents. If the possibility of a brass-ring patent that would have kept them free of competition spurred them to innovate, that's meaningless. The patents were placebos, then, that assuaged their fears of innovating, being copied, and then being beat in the marketplace; they ended up having no effect, though, as they wound up competing with each other. And they apparently had no trouble surviving having competition, so their fears were groundless to begin with.

At best, patents allayed a groundless fear. Remove patents and use examples of companies thriving in the presence of competition to allay fear without treading on freedoms or sometimes producing the terrible outcome of a patent actually being effective at its job, resulting in a field stagnating for twenty years and something being ludicrously expensive compared to its marginal cost for as long.

""Patents didn't cause that. Competition did; competition that happened in spite of, not because of, patents."

You are hilarious."

No. I am deadly serious. Stop insulting me or else!

"Did you work for one of those two companies? Did you see what their strategy sessions involve? Each company monitored the other's patents. Each company watched the direction the other was taken. Each company responded to the direction of the other's patents by developing their own countermoves and technology."

Without patents, they'd have watched each other in some other manner. Simply taking apart instances of one another's products, or headhunting experts from one another Silicon Valley style, or whatever.

Patents have nothing to do with this. They happened to be present in the room, but that's all. They're like someone whose fingerprints were at the scene, but who turns out not to have done anything, good or bad, in that particular instance.

"I believe it is absolutely accurate to say that neither company would have developed the products they did and the price reductions they did without patents."

Some people believe they've seen Elvis, or UFOs. Others believe the devil is after them, or the CIA's mind control rays can be blocked with tinfoil. Lots of people believe all kinds of crazy stuff simply because a) a bunch of other people do and b) there's a book at least a thousand years old that says the same thing. Some more don't even require b).

None of Your Beeswax:

I have spent many hours researching my responses, and they are quite accurate. Hydro-Gear and Tuff Torq (Kanzaki's subsidiary for hydrostatic turf care drives) only went into the business because they were able to protect their investment with patents. Patents were not a placebo, they were a requirement for the investment to be made. No patents, no investment no advancement.

However, you have attempted to misdirect my comments, you have thrown in non-sequiturs, you have added hyperbole by your outrage at imaginary insults. In many respects you behave as a troll.

I believe I have attempted to speak to you reasonably long enough. I will no longer speak to you, either directly or indirectly. Go bug someone else.

Incidentally, you talk a lot like that buffoon None of Your Beeswax. Are you trying to be a buffoon too?

Nobody Nowhere was the person acting as a buffoon in the post immediately above, not None of Your Beeswax, though he/she appears to be in competition with Nobody Nowhere.

"I have spent many hours researching my responses, and they are quite accurate."

They are not.

"protect their investment with patents"

Patents aren't about protecting investments. They are about screwing consumers and getting a free ride for work done 20 years ago.

"Patents were not a placebo, they were a requirement for the investment to be made."

The evidence showed otherwise.

"However, you have attempted to misdirect my comments [rest of insulting nonsense omitted]"

NO. I have not.

"I believe I have attempted to speak to you reasonably long enough."

You have done no such thing. You assert without evidence that patents are some sort of magic bullet for all kinds of problems; the one thing we definitely know depends on them is your own job so you'll pardon us if we're skeptical about your repeated assertions. And your ad hominem attacks have certainly not been "reasonable" behavior by any stretch of the imagination.

"Nobody Nowhere was the person acting as a buffoon"

The only person acting as a buffoon here is the one calling himself Lonnie E. Holder.

Meanwhile, your ad hominem attacks fail to convince anyone that patents shouldn't be abolished.